Cherry Tree Cookie Day

Biology Faculty Tom Cone celebrates one of the natural beauties of the Phillips Academy Campus

One of Andover’s great traditions is when Tom Cone puts out cookies under the Cherry Tree between Sam Phil and Morse Hall to commemorate spring and to call attention to one of the natural treasures of the campus.

This morning was that morning. Mr. Cone’s first period Bio-100 class helped him prepare many trays of cookies to put out throughout the morning. They helped him bring the table and “Welcome Spring” sign out and, of course, helped themselves to the first bites of the goodies!

The entire class then gathered beneath the tree, where Mr. Cone used this as a learning opportunity as all the Bio-100 classes are learning about the anatomy of flowers and other plants. He pulled a couple of buds off the trees to demonstrate the pieces of a flower that they had learned about in class.

The cherry tree also has a rich history on the campus – it has been around for decades and was almost cut down – twice! The first time was in the early 1970’s, when the old Evans Hall Science Building still stood. Some in the school thought that the cherry tree blocked the view of the building from the west side of campus and planned to cut the tree down. Students and faculty heard this and many people literally “hugged” the tree the day the cutters came so they could not cut the tree down. They did not come back.

Later, after the Gelb Science Center was built in 2004, some in the school again thought that the tree blocked the view of the building from the Foxcroft area. Members of the PA community fought to keep the tree and when the architects of Gelb agreed with the community, the result was an agreement to keep the tree.

While this year, because of the recent warm, then cold, weather, the blooms are a bit sparse, it should come to full bloom in the next couple of days. Be sure to stop by some time this morning to marvel this magnificent tree (and get some cookies!) or make sure to notice it at some point in the next few days, before the bloom is over.